☜beawilderment☞

here’s another peachtober one i really liked, the prompt was “sleepy”

it was the Halloween one! I call my series “Moon Daze: Moon Day Mondays”

I know it’s cheezy ok,,, LRRLLYY

over at insta i’ve been posting a moon-themed drawing every Monday

this was a mashup with peachtober prompt “cowboy” for that day

i’ve been wondering if i should post art on Tumblr so this is a test post

when i die

will the box of my things be smaller than my coffin

will people who loved me be weighed down by not knowing what they meant to me

not knowing what to throw away

i wish i found it easier to be the one to do the throwing

of useless odds and ends that are ghosts of my past

i don’t want to leave a room-sized junkyard

of things kept stock

for a tomorrow that never came

or has come and passed by yet deemed too soon

to use the things that were made to be used

to open the packages meant to be opened

i’m excited about the james webb images

and images of the telescope itself

i like calling my husband hubble, i wonder if he’d call me webb...

i now pronounce us hubble and webb

maybe we can have a hamster named pebble

and i’d ask to be called webble just to fit in.

i have his birthday gift downstairs. 

i was worried the guards would alert him when he left

but luckily there wasn’t free parking available tomorrow

so he had to go to the basement to get the car from the paid parking

sometimes bad stuff that happen end up being lucky

i tried an instant coffee with strawberry flavoring in it

but it was too sweet

so i added real coffee

and real strawberries

real milk, and fake sugar

sometimes i just want to try things a little bit 

to replicate them a lotta bit

i was thinking of buying a lavender soap

but it was too expensive and not on sale

there was only one on the shelf

i asked, is this a sign, should i take it

so i put it in my cart, 

and suddenly found a different 

larger, cheaper

lavender soap

maybe it was a sign to take it so i can feel how much better it was to buy the better option

maybe it wasn’t a sign at all

and people just like lavender

and are intimidated by big bottles of soap

it’s so hard to wake up in the morning

i keep giving myself bribes

like coffee, and fake urgency

i need a way to remind myself how the hard things feel better in the long term.

it feels good to clean

it feels good to create things

it feels good to move around

and be in one’s body

in this very short time

in this very small space

compared to the vast infinity of the universe

I need to write more. For my mental health. But it’s been hard to reach that mental state of being able to really check in and be truthful and expressive about real life. The less things stick out, the harder they are to perceive, and the harder it is to find the words to describe them. But that’s exactly what I want to be able to capture.

I think I’ll be here every once in a while to just exercise being able to paint my life in words. I write in a journal but because it takes a lot more physical effort I often find myself shortening things and not allowing myself to be liberal with my words.

The challenge is in being able to zoom out for a big picture before zooming in to get the details. I very easily get lost in the details OR the big picture, separately. But magic resides in being able to weave both into one. 

I’m in a fork on a road that looks like a dead end from where I’m standing. It’s both an end and a beginning of paving my own weed-covered rough path. It might not even look like a path even when I’m done. I might just end up wandering in the wild, but I’d have lived that life, even if nobody else sees.

I honestly wouldn’t know how to say yet what I’m trying to do in few enough words, there’s so much but also when I try to start talking about it, it feels like it’s not enough.

My hope is that the right words will just find me after I’ve created a life that deems them appropriate.

ten years after the end of the world

we’re still here being held up here

by stained popsicle stick scaffoldings 

stuck together by sickly sweet

teenage hopes and dreams

memories of strangers we felt we knew

dragged around like a coating of dirt

familiar logos we can draw by hand

on discarded plastic faded by the sun

we thought we were chasing something

stuck at the end of the string

but it was tied to itself and as we kept pulling

we just let it cut deeper in

till it hurt so much from a place we can’t find

and our arms got tired so we rested

left for a break that lasted for years

returning to a sand-washed shore

You may feel like their lives are what you’re meant to live

And it’s true, they might pull you closer to where you aught to be

But you are not meant to stand in their footsteps - each one can only stand on their own

You will find your own rock or plot or mud on which you can proudly stand as yourself

And your heroes will inspire you to walk herewise and there

This comes with the thing I’m writing, which is a tribute to Spiritfarer! <3

To my thirties! Not new but

I’ve been dancing around finishing the current thing I’m writing, and I’m going to use this Tumbytumbtumb to take the edge off a bit.

I’ve left this place frozen in time in my mid-late 20′s when life was peachy and bright

Right now it’s bright like an explosion more than a summer day

Like a lot of people, I ~went through things~ during the pandanini, not the star of the show itself, thankfully, but all of the turmoil and intense pressure that forces one to change on the inside when they’re a bit stuck in place on the outside

Basically I

left my then-perfect job

got married

travelled to Japan

decided I wanted to pursue more creative things

and started realizing I probably don’t really want two things I thought were just gonna have to be a part of my future:

a job

motherhood

My view on what I must do in life just drastically changed. I always had the feeling that jobs were sort of just a dance everyone got used to doing in life, but never felt comfortable just sitting by because I thought the music would never stop... but then it did. Then many people actually stopped dancing, and I realized my experiences and feelings were valid or something

Anyway, I saved up a bit so now I’m just going to see how long I can survive doing odd jobs and drawing, writing, singing, painting, and just trying to live on Earth while it’s possible.

freedom

travelling to Japan

being okay with not being so good yet, but get better at painting every day

immersing myself in art, no matter what the outcome, but really getting into my feelings and dreams about it. letting myself be “that crazy person”.. 

caring less about what *i* think “others” think about me.

making music, learning to produce videos, writing songs

writing stories, making them come to life

★ general life sitch ★

☆ Still my same ever-changing dynamic job that I love. It is always new and challenging but steady enough because I work with the same set of children until they leave gradeschool. I’m always struggling to motivate myself to do the planning and monitoring side of it all but the actual teaching side is delightful

☆ Still in the same apartment, but our current contract is only for another 2 years. Thinking about whether to stay or leave, but will most likely stay if possible and not too expensive.

☆ So obviously we’re staying in the Philippines at least until 2025, which is a huge deal because that’s a lot of time. I’m hoping we get to do more on the side aside of our jobs, even if it’s around our jobs, like I’ve been thinking of writing books of stories I’ve made for my class, etc, recording songs I’ve written for them, and Beardy’s starting this D&D thing where I’m also helping a lot in the story formation, we also have co-worker friends with similar interests like comedy and boardgames and music, and I generally just feel like maybe I could try getting better at my job so that when it feels easier I could do more of those things.

★ currently ★

☆ playing: Minecraft and Zuma when there is time. Recently Sims 4 and Simcity but not very recently

☆ watching: Reruns galore, and latest season of Glow was pretty nice! Also, on youtube, Lindsay Ellis and Pitch Meetings, Ted Talks, a lot of random people’s life stories

☆ doing: grade computation and planning for the school year (or at least trying to! I am quite bad at focusing today)

☆ eating: a lot of stuff from the frozen section of the grocery store, and tea

Working on: 

+ Lesson plans for school, self-studying methods

+ Planning and some pre-cleaning for The Big Purge (getting rid of a bunch of stuff in April and May)

+ Deleting bad old habits (excessive procrastination and the feelings associated, over-eating, screen time before bed)

Listening to:

+ Chaos Chaos (formerly Smoosh) - very danceable but also makes me want to make songs! I think I want a keyboard.

Watching:

+ ASMR videos to release anxiety

Trying to:

+ rise above my emotions in order to focus on the task at hand

+ forgive myself but still make and effort at being better

Feeling:

+ anxious but excited to be better

+ caffeinated. that’s why i’m here

For 2018, my theme is to Break Free! aka:

F R E E E E E E E E E E E E D O O O O O M : Unshackle and Shed

I want to:

♦ replace eating as my anxiety coping mechanism (paint, knit, crochet, Minecraft lol)

♦ speak my mind in a kind but free manner

♦ free my belongings, free my room of unnecessary belongings, also as a way to psychologically break free from the weight of the past

♦ 50% fluency in French, to unshackle a bit my geographical limits when it comes to work opportunities, in case we really do move to France :o

♦ Dance and stretch more, move more freely and lightly

♦ Get legal: Emmy and I are going to start planning our civil marriage soon. Now I know, the typical assumption towards marriage is that it’s the opposite of unshackling and freedom, but in our case, it allows us to move freely around the world, to stay here and visit anywhere with less problems. A lot of the other goals I have this year are centered around getting my brain ready. I feel very much like a child a lot of the time, and it doesn’t help that I have so much junk from the past lying around, that I don’t need. And it doesn’t help when I feel physically, socially weak. When we do the thing, I want to feel ready and willing and not like we HAVE to do it because the system is forcing us to it.

♦ Have an organized, free-flowing, easy to use, not frivolous system of note-taking. I want to easily access my own thoughts, plans, etc. to build continuity within myself. I fail to make long term change when I solely rely on my upfront memory! 

That’s it, really. (I say that, but that’s a lot already!) 

In my dreams, I still live in the house I lived in from age 6-18.

Typically, near the end of my dreaming cycle, I start realizing that I don’t live in that house anymore, and I try to put the pieces of my current house into the image, until it gets so confusing that I just wake up frightened.

Frightened about how easy it could be to forget. Knowing that the house we have right now isn’t as strongly etched in my mind as the house it used to be.

Same address, different house

Neither version of the house is flawless. But I remember very clearly how I thought that that old house was perfectly designed. I adored every intersection. The way everything fit together like a puzzle. My dad made me a little polly-pocket style replica of it made of cardboard. The floods washed it away. And I’m left scrambling, trying to replicate it in my sleep every now and then.

I could try and imagine a way to make a house as perfect, but I know I never could. It was perfect not because it was flawless, but because I was aged 6-18. I couldn’t see how it could be better. All I knew was it was mine.

It’s stormy outside and it’s putting me into a very writey mood, so here I am. Not sure if I’ve said this already but this is going to be where I just write for the sake of writing. My blogspot is about to go on a more consciously directed, um, direction... if i ever get myself to commit to it

There’s got to be a time real soon, anytime now, when going back to work would feel less scary every first day of the week.

I clearly remember myself feeling like I was confident going back to work every week, sometime last school year. That’s gonna happen this year too right?  I just gotta get a good routine going.

Today was pretty good, didn’t play too much Sims 3, watched a great movie (Captain Fantastic), watched two new episodes of our favorite shows, some R-rated personal stuff, cleaned a bit, got shit done, cooked food, even exercised before a nice hot shower. Maybe that’s partly why it’s hard to go back to work-mode.

There was nothing to prepare for last year, and yet I felt really anxious at the start anyway. Now there’s always something to prepare every day. I guess it’s reasonable then that I’m anxious. I’m hoping that I’m growing at an exponential rate and will now be able to deal with my shit earlier. 

Just gotta stay healthy, stay interested, stay busy.

The trick I found is to not overthink, which is easier of course to do when you don’t HAVE to think to do your job. But now that I do need to think, it’s a subtler exercise to avoid overdoing so.

I’m back in the apartment! Went home and took all of my things. Gonna settle right in and clean and tidy more. Gonna prepare for work! Gonna do a Good Job. (It’s been exactly 2 months since we went back into the Philippines so that’s how long I’ve been living back at my mom’s house)

This morning I gave Emmy his birthday surprise! I was going to paint the totoro on the wrapper but instead I just upcycled the tote bag it went in. This way he can use it! It’s so serendipitous because I originally wanted to sew him a totoro purse, but knew he doesn’t really have a use for it because he uses the same wallet all the time. But he does use tote bags! #totelife ..TOTOLIFE!

For now though, just this :)